14 January 2018

Painting: Surface and Gesture, week 1

Surface of the table has already, if inadventently, been painted

During the demonstration I experienced a strong urge to leave immediately - this seemed all too much for me grappling with the fluid messiness of paint and having to choose colour and then working with/from the image of a face - I must have been mad to sign up for this...

But everyone else looked so enthusiastic and pleasant and anticipatory. I stuck it out. "Start somewhere and see what happens."

My images were "any old thing" from the most convenient newspaper. I turned the first one upside down and mixed some acrylic colours, very thin, for a watercolour effect. The one on the right was my first attempt; second attempt works better. Both are frightening!

The palette I had chosen was deliberately limited - couldn't resist the pink - plus an orange and a blue. This is an early stage of "the dental implant couple" -

... and the "finished" version - I felt very bold using thicker, undiluted paint -

Second attempt - "The Frightwigs" -

Well, y'know, this could actually be a bit of fun, if I were to let myself enjoy it. But for years I've been avoiding "faces" and/or telling myself they don't interest me. Which is the sort of negative thinking that gets no-one anywhere. "It's one short class in a five-class course," I was telling myself; "the others have different starting points. You like surprises when you attend a course. You like to learn something new. You like to push against brick walls. And yet, you're being downright silly to react so stubbornly to faces."

Hmm, plenty to think about - and say - about this matter of challenging oneself, or not, by taking courses that put us out of our comfort zone. Another time.

No comments:

Tuesday is Drawing Day - why not join in, wherever you are, any or every Tuesday? Find somewhere that has interesting things - it needn't be a museum, it could be your own home! - and just draw, using whatever media you want. Ask some friends to join you, then have a nice lunch.

The London group has grown to the point where it's getting difficult to find a cafe table large enough, and reluctantly I must say that it is no longer open to new members.

7 May - V&A, medieval galleries

14 May - Horniman (gardens?)

21 May - Wallace Collection

28 May - Southwark Cathedral

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I had work in "A Letter in Mind" at the Oxo Gallery, September 2017 and again in 2018.